Customer service is disappearing

GUEST OPINION

I left the farm when I was a couple months shy of 18 years old to attend the Military Academy in New York. I was to check in on July 5, and for some reason, I couldn’t fly on the Fourth, so I spent the holiday in Manhattan totally in awe of the tall buildings and all those people. After spending the morning awestruck, my body craved lunch, so I looked for a place to eat. The only eatery available was a hot dog truck. I waited in line and scanned the posted menu when the proprietor asked me, “What’s yours, Mac?” I hesitated, and he continued, “If you don’t know, get out of line, there are people behind you.” Welcome to big city customer service.

I had spent the previous four years going to high school while working evenings and weekends in the local super market. Our manager emphasized over and over that the store existed to serve customers. Thus, the store was not only my job, it was my social life. I made friends with the regular shoppers, as I was trained to do, and made being helpful to the shoppers part of my routine. With the explosion of automatic tellers, artificial intelligence, and telephone answering robots; we are in danger of losing customer service even in rural America. Have you ever tried to make small talk with an automatic checkout machine?

Airports are the absolute worse. I returned from vacation last winter with a stop in Denver. Our plane was too late to make our connection, and we were advised to go to the Customer Service Desk. Finding it was an experience; partly because the name had been changed to “Passenger Assistance.” It is now official; airlines no longer have customer service.

Remember when you could call Montgomery Ward’s catalog department and order a new pair of tennis shoes for school? A nice lady would answer the phone and help you find the right size, and mail them to you. Not anymore. Now when you call, you get a robot who begins with, “Para Espanol, marque dos.” I’m not sure what that means, so I just wait until another robot voice asks questions to determine that I’m not a robot. I guess robots aren’t allowed to talk to each other as they might take over the entire world of commerce.

I was feeling poorly last week and called my doctor’s office for an appointment. The auto answering recording began with, “We have changed our phone service in order to better serve you.” I was better served when Rhonda answered the phone. Then they do the “Para Espanol…” bit even though everyone in our little town speaks English. Then the machine goes through the warnings to call 911 if this is an emergency and advises me to call my pharmacy if I want a prescription refill before putting me on hold for 10 minutes. Honest, ten minutes, I timed it. Then the human receptionist comes on the line and says, “Please hold.” Big city manners have intruded into our hometowns.

We frequently eat out when I visit my son in Seattle. Restaurants there have computer codes stamped on the tables. Tech savvy customers scan the code on their smart phones then make selections on the appropriate app. After a while our meals magically appear carried by a food service technician.

My grandson tried to explain all this to me, but I see no reason to go out to eat where I can’t flirt with the waitress. In the small towns of our area, restaurants still have courteous human beings who welcome us and make sure we have the option to have fries with that.

Customer service is under attack everywhere, but the rural Inland Empire is among the last hold outs.

FRANK WATSON IS A RETIRED AIR FORDE COLONEL AND LONG-TIME RESIDENT OF EASTERN WASHINGTON. HE HAS BEEN A FREE-LANCE COLUMNIST FOR OVER 20 YEARS.